


Shards

by ginger_rude



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dreams, Episode: s01e04 The World in the Walls, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Just don't say I didn't warn you, NOT a resurrection fic, Not A Fix-It, Six Feet Under (Referenced), Survivor Guilt, not in that sense anyway, post-season 4 finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-09-02 01:03:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20267470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger_rude/pseuds/ginger_rude
Summary: A series of fragments and short scenes following the season 4 finale.  Warning: NOT A RESURRECTION FIC.  See end notes for more.(edited to change from a series to single multi-chapter work)





	1. Heart of glass

**Author's Note:**

> I can't stress enough: this one's canon compliant and not a fix it. It's kind of an experiment, kind of an exorcism. Thanks for reading, IF you're up for it.
> 
> If you're looking for Q/E centered fic where the stupid finale never happens in the first place (and thus no major canonical death), you're more than welcome to check out my other, ongoing series, [For Want of a Nail.](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1382302)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice, Head Librarian, does her best to work under pressure.

“No. You loved him. I don’t understand why you’d just give up.”

Julia stands as though her feet have grown roots through Alice’s tastefully patterned carpet. Like everything else about her office, the rug is inherited from its previous owner. Like everything else in Alice’s life right now, she doesn’t like it, but she’s doing her best to work with what she's got. Now including an increasingly stubborn and angry Julia. 

“It’s not like that, Julia.”

“Okay, what’s it like?” Alice doesn’t respond. “You know we’ve already been to the Underworld. Kady and I can find something on the black market to pay the toll. All we need from you is information.”

“I don’t have that information—“

“Bullshit.” Julia raises her voice for the first time. “Q and I figured out how to bring _you_ back all by ourselves. In case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget.”

“So it can’t be that hard. Find us something on bringing an integrated soul back up from the Underworld. If anything, it should be simpler than bringing up a Shade.”

“Julia—“

“I will do it myself if I have to, but it’d be much, much easier if you would just help us—“

“He’s not in the Underworld.”

This finally pulls Julia up short. 

“Okay,” she says at last. “And you know this…?”

“Because I looked it up. What, you think I didn’t? As soon as, the second I got back in here? I didn’t even take my coat off.” 

“So where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Julia’s eyes are unmoving slits. “So the book tells you where he’s not, but not where he went?”

“Yes. I know you don’t believe me, but that’s how it works. Peoples’ books only tell you the end of the story, not what happens afterward. The Underworld branch has data on everything about the Underworld, including who’s in it. And who’s moved on. He moved on, Julia. And, no, there’s nothing about where people go after they leave.”

“But you have access to the entire Library. There’s literally no information in the entire universe that’s not written down, somewhere in here. Harriet told Kady. That’s how we got the book on how to kill a god. From the Poison Room. Is it in the Poison Room?”

“There’s no more Poison Room. I had it decontaminated.”

“Great. Let’s go there right now.”

“Stop.” Alice holds out a hand; Julia’s marched all the way up to her desk and is practically in her face. “Julia, this…isn’t going to work.”

Julia only backs off an inch or two. 

“How do you know? If you won’t even try to find out? If you won’t even—“

Alice grimaces. Takes a breath.

“What if I told you that you’re right. That, everything you want to know is in the Library, if you look hard enough. And, what I found said it’s not possible to pull someone back once they’ve gone that far.”

Julia stands back and folds her arms.

“Then I’d say…Wow. It didn’t take you very long to turn into an obstructive bureaucrat.”

She turns to go. Pauses at the door.

“And I’d say: I already knew that you’re ungrateful, and you turn on a dime. But I still didn’t think you’d just abandon him.”

And she’s gone.

Alice sits back in the oversized leather chair and sighs. She takes off her glasses and rubs her forehead, closing her eyes. It’s not even noon yet. 

“You know, she’s right,” Quentin says from somewhere above her left ear. “You sound like a DMV branch manager.”

Alice doesn’t bother to look around. “Go away.”

He’s already perched on her desk, legs crossed. He peers at the binder at the top of her to-do stack. “This looks seriously boring. Why not take a break? Go get lunch. With a friend. Oh, wait.”

“I said: go away.”

He shrugs good-naturedly and jumps down. “Hey,” he says, as he peruses her shelves, “do you think you’d be experiencing this if I hadn’t made you binge watch all five seasons of _Six Feet Under_ with me after magic went out? Sometimes I wondered if that’s why you really left.”

Alice gives up. “Let’s just say it didn’t help.”

“Sorry,” says Quentin, not sounding particularly sorry. 

“Look,” says Alice. “I have to work.”

“Sure,” Quentin says. “I understand. Just not on bringing me back to life.”

Alice slams the binder shut. “This is completely unfair.”

“Is it? I don’t know, I feel like I finally get it now. Seriously, I had no idea how much fun this must have been for you when you were a niffin.”

“I wasn’t…”

“Having fun? With the torture?” He grins endearingly at her. “Yeah, you were. More than you ever enjoyed anything before, or since. Not that that’s saying a lot.”

“…I wasn’t myself.”

“I don’t know who you think you’re convincing, Vix.”

“Fine,” she says. “Yes. It was me. Not all of me. But I’m responsible. And I’m still paying for it, okay? Just—ugh.” She gets up and paces away. “I can’t think like this.”

“Exactly.” He points at her. “You’re confused. Niffins don’t care about right and wrong, and you still can’t entirely remember how to human.”

“You are not telling me anything that I didn’t tell you, so you can stop trying to get under my skin.”

“And you never stopped resenting me for bringing you back. So, now, you’re not going to bring me back, because you’re afraid I’d resent _you_.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.“

He ponders. “I guess you could be right. I mean, I could be somewhere awful right now, hating you because I _do_ want you to bring me back, and you aren’t.”

“Because I can’t! I can’t, Quentin! I’m not—God. I. Do not know. How. If there was any way—“

“Right. You’re the smartest person ever. If you can’t figure it out, it doesn’t exist.”

She puts her forehead on the desk. 

“If it’s not in the Library, it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t mean I don’t keep looking anyway. Every day. I never stop trying. You know this. I am always trying, Quentin—“

“Yeah, I’ve heard this one before. It wasn’t enough then, and it isn’t enough now.”

She pushes off and away from the desk. “So what do you want me to do, huh?”

He’s just looking at her. “There is nothing you can do. Your best isn’t enough here, and it never will be.”

She closes her eyes.

“Which is why you’ve always been scared to know how good you really are. Not just because everyone’s jealous of the smart chick. You were afraid you’d finally try as hard as you can and fail anyway. Like you are now. You’re not actually _that_ special, Alice.”

“Good,” she says. “I never wanted to be.”

“Yeah, but you do, though,” he says. “Because if you’re not actually so much better than everyone else, if that’s not the reason they all hate you, then—why are you always so alone?”

She says nothing. A tear slips down her cheek. 

“Too bad you pushed me away for so long. At least we made it up before I died. Better late than never, right?”

“Right,” Alice says flatly.

“I mean, in a way it probably hurts even more now, but hey, you know what they say about pain. Maybe it’ll give your magic an extra boost. Maybe you really can fix this! …Nah.”

“Okay,” says Alice. “You’ve had your fun for the day. Can you just leave me alone now? Please?”

Quentin’s arm steals around her shoulder; his tone is genuinely sympathetic.

“But, Vix,” he says. “You know I can’t leave you. I’m you. Where would I go?”

“Stop talking, then, okay? An hour. Ten minutes. Five. You made your point. Whatever it is. Just—stop.”

“And if I leave you alone,” Quentin continues as though she hadn’t interrupted, “then you really won’t have anyone to talk to at all.”

“Please,” says Alice, “please be quiet.”

“‘Spinster librarian, eaten by cats.’”

“Stop it!”

“See, it’s not just that I was the only person alive who loved you, Alice. Now, there’s no one left who even _likes_ you.”

“That’s not true,” says Alice. Quentin raises his eyebrows at her. “Sheila likes me. Zelda likes me.”

“Sheila might have been your friend for five minutes, but she chose the Library over you. She’s only nice to you because she’s your employee now. Zelda—yeah, I guess she cares about you in her own bent way, but can you really consider her a friend? I mean, if it wasn’t for her, I might still be alive.”

“Enough.”

“I’m not saying it’s all her fault, or anything. It’s a lot of peoples’ fault. But mostly, yours.”

“Shut up.”

“Do you really think a couple of nice speeches and some kissy face makes up for all the shit you put me through? You made me miserable, Alice, and I was already pretty fucking miserable to begin with.”

“Shut up!”

“I know I said I wanted you back in my life, but honestly? Given our track record, dying was probably a relief.”

“Shut up, just fucking shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up SHUT UP—“

Someone clears their throat behind her. “Hey—“

Alice whirls around. Kady’s framed in the open door.

“Can you knock?”

“Yeah, I already did. I, uh. Heard a little of that.”

“Well, I hope it was entertaining for you,” says Alice. “What do you want?” 

“Way to be professional there, Vix,” comes from behind her. Alice closes her eyes and bites her lip until it bleeds.

“Sorry,” she says. “Hi, Kady. What can I do for you?”

“Well…” Kady trails off. “I wanted to talk to you about the Hedge Fund. Yeah, I know. Pete thinks the name is hilarious. But if this isn’t a good time…”

“It’s fine,” Alice says. She tries to wipe her eyes as discreetly as possible. “Didn’t Sheila crunch the numbers for you?”

“The basics, yeah,” says Kady. “She said she needs your approval on some items, though.”

“Okay,” says Alice. She looks at Kady expectantly. “Ready when you are.”

Kady fumbles in her bag. She pulls out a sheaf of paper, but then hesitates again.

“Look,” says Kady. “You know I’ve…had a lot of those conversations, right? Even after there was technically no one on the other end. So…I get it. I mean, as much as anyone can ever get it. I’m just saying: I’ve been there.”

Alice considers a number of possible responses before settling on “Okay.” As an afterthought: “Thanks.”

“Yeah, well.” Kady’s just standing there with the papers. “You know, I can just leave them and come back.”

“That’s—no, I can look them over now,” says Alice. Mid-reach, she meets Kady’s clear blue gaze. With an effort, she manages to control the welter of emotions that threatens to overspill at the sympathy she sees there.

“Actually,” Alice says, “have you eaten? I was just thinking of going to the canteen, if you want to come.”

One corner of Kady’s mouth turns up. “Sure.”

“Bring those, and I can look at them while we eat if you want,” says Alice.

“Or, not,” says Kady.

“…Or not,” Alice agrees. 

She lets Kady leave first. As she turns to shut the door, she sees Quentin again, now just sitting on the floor in a corner, looking up at her with a much more familiar expression. A little lost. A little sad, even through the crooked smile he offers her. 

Alice pauses to clear the mist from her glasses again. When she puts them back on, he’s gone.


	2. Fissure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia gets a phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again: this is canon-compliant, not a fix-it; turn back now if you want happy.

Julia watches Eliot take a sip of his tea and grimace. 

“I take it she said no again.”

Julia shakes her head. Penny’s arm around her is strong and solid, and she feels guilty for wanting to shrug it off. Then again, she’s had enough of feeling guilty.

“Look, we’ll find another way.”

Eliot snorts faintly. 

“There has to be something,” Julia insists. “She didn’t say we can’t use the Library ourselves. She already gave us full access. So we research. We don’t need her help. We’re smart. We can do this ourselves. We always—“

There’s a tremor in Eliot’s hand as he sets the mug down. 

“—figure it out?” he finishes. He looks around the room with some of his old sardonic air. “Yes. We certainly do fix things.”

Penny gives her a little squeeze. Her shoulders twitch. 

“You told me once, you’d never met anyone less willing to take ‘no’ for an answer than me,” Julia says out loud. 

That might be the faint ghost of a smile. She presses:

“You asked me to help you, then. You said we both needed it. And you were right.”

Eliot looks into his mug as though he’s literally trying to read the leaves. 

“Honestly,” he says, “this is starting to feel like an elaborate way of prolonging our misery.”

“So—what are you saying?” says Julia. “You give up, too?”

“I’m saying…maybe it’s time to move on.”

“He never stopped fighting for you. If you could have seen him…” 

Eliot looks away.

Penny says softly, “Only after he knew Eliot was alive.”

Julia finally pulls away from him. 

“On that note,” says Eliot, “so is Margo, as far as I know. Triage may be the operative word here.”

“Fine,” says Julia. “Maybe we should each just focus on what’s most important to us.”

“Julia,” says Penny.

“Yes, Margo is very important, thank you for your concern,” says Eliot. 

“I’m sorry,” says Julia. “I am. But I can’t…”

“It’s all right,” says Eliot. “Truly. I’ll just find my way back to Fillory. Hopefully before another thousand years pass and Jane’s little Arcadia is bulldozed into a parking lot.“ 

“You know how much he cared about you,” says Julia.

Eliot becomes very still.

“He loved you.”

Eliot smiles, a mean little doll’s mouth in a waxen mask. 

“Thanks for the tea,” he says. “It’s a little early in the day for me, though.”

He rises painfully. Penny makes a move as though to help him. 

“Please,” says Eliot. “You’ve done so much already.”

They both watch him go. 

“He should still have that cane,” says Penny. 

“He can do what he wants,” says Julia. “Everyone can do what they want.”

Penny looks like he wants to say something, but checks himself.

“Just say it,” says Julia. “You think he’s right.”

“I don’t have an opinion. I told you: whatever you decide, I’ll go along.”

“But?”

“But…I get how people can shut down. It’s hard, Julia.”

“No shit? No shit, Penny?” 

He holds his hands up: peace. She fumbles for a cigarette. Tough shit if Kady doesn’t like smoke in the apartment. She’s not here, either. 

“So, what, I made him walk out?” She looks at him. “I pushed too hard.”

Penny puts a hand to the back of his head. 

“You know he was in love with him, right?”

Julia stares briefly. “Eliot? I—no, I don’t know how he felt. I barely talk to him, and I wouldn’t assume…oh, God. No wonder he—“ 

Penny is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

“What?”

“I meant…yeah, that too,” he says. 

Julia shakes her head slightly. “You think Q and Eliot…”

“I know. More or less. I thought you did too.” 

It’s an effort to speak again. There’s no real emotion, just an impression of white noise. 

“Why,” she says very quietly, “would you know something like that, when I didn’t.”

“It seemed…obvious? All right. His wards were always for shit. I don’t try to look; he just…leaked.”

“And you’re just saying something about it now?”

“I didn’t think it was any of my business.”

“Bullshit.” The feelings are coming back now, good and hard. “You just didn’t give a shit about him.”

“What? Julia. Where do you get that? What didn’t I do?”

“For a start, apparently it didn’t occur to you to mention something that important until it was too late.”

“What difference would knowing that have made, Julia?”

She barks a laugh. “You’re asking that. You. Are saying this to me. Seriously. Because you obviously prioritize the well being of everyone equally, regardless of how you feel about them.”

“First of all,” he says, “I did go along to try and save Eliot, even when it seemed hopeless. Even though making a different choice might have prevented a lot of murder. That wasn’t because you wanted it, that was how Quentin wanted it.”

“Which you accepted because Quentin was my friend.”

“And then,” he continues with a raised voice, “even assuming any of that was true, that I’m the kind of person who only gives a shit about someone if I’m in love with them, Quentin wasn’t.”

“Oh, what, because you knew him so well?”

“Well enough.”

“No,” she says. “He was my best friend. For twenty years. You knew some other Quentin, for, what, a year? And then he turned into a monster, and killed some other Julia that you were in love with. Your ‘soul mate.’ You didn’t know my friend Q, and you don’t know me either.”

“Julia,” he says dully.

“What else? What else did you just decide, all by yourself? What else do you know that I’m too stupid to figure out for myself? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

He stands, head bowed, silent. It just makes her more furious. 

“You know, maybe if you’d put your tragic fuckboy feelings aside, you’d know I’d rather be a goddess than some fucking helpless maiden. Maybe, just maybe, if I’d had my power? Q wouldn’t have had to die.”

It’s like she’s brought all the white noise that was inside of her into the room with them. Maybe this is what the inside of an H-bomb explosion is like.

She’s panting. “Say something, goddamn it.”

“I got nothing to say,” he says. He looks up at her. “All right. All right, Julia.”

He disappears.

She picks up Eliot’s mug and hurls it at the wall, through the space where Penny was. 

For the first time since it happened, she lets herself have a good long scream, a wounded animal howl.

She’s lost track of the time, she realizes dully. It’s dimmer. She switches on the kitchen light, cleans the floor, mends the mug. It’s not quite even. There’s a hairline fracture at the handle. It’ll have to do. Fixing things was never her discipline. 

What the hell. She goes back to her laptop, the endless not so patient searching through the Library’s online database, second and third browser windows open to a couple of possible leads on the dark web. She wishes Free Trader Beowulf were around. It occurs to her that even if Q’s moved on from the Underworld, maybe not all of them have yet. But given that Penny-other Penny-evidently isn’t going to help (thanks, Alice), she’ll have to—

Her train of thought is interrupted by her phone. She looks at the screen, a small frown creasing her forehead. She thought she’d turned it off. Unknown caller. She’s prepared to ignore it, but on impulse, she answers. Maybe yelling at a spam caller will make her feel better. Even a robot would do.

She tucks the phone between her shoulder and ear, still typing.

“Hello?”

“Jules?”

The back of her neck turns to ice.

“Q?”

“Jules. Are you there? I can’t hear you—“

“Q,”—she’s practically shouting. “Oh, my God. Oh my God. Can you hear me now?”

A pause. “Yes.” 

“Where are you?” She clutches the phone, one hand wrapped around the other.

“I—Julia, how did I get here?”

“What? Q, I don’t even know where you—tell me. Tell me where you are. Please.”

“I don’t know.” The voice is faint, a little echo-ey. “I think—maybe in the hospital? But they won’t let me check out.”

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. That’s good. Which hospital?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you ask? They have to tell you that. Ask someone now. Wherever you are, I’ll come get you. Just—”

“What did I do?” There’s a tremor in his voice. 

She wets her lips. “It’s a mistake. Okay? We’re going to fix it. I promise.”

He’s talking in a familiar rush, now. “I can’t remember. Julia, I can’t—whatever I did, I’m sorry. This can’t be my life. Please.” 

“No, Q, calm—listen. It’s my mistake. Okay? You were right. You were right, Q. It’s a spell.”

There’s a brief silence. “I’m not crazy?”

“No, God, no. I mean—shit. I’m so, so sorry. I’ve been—so selfish, and I—didn’t want to see how bad it was for you, and I did a fucked up thing, but I’m going to fix it, I swear. Just hang on, okay? Try not to get—“

_buried under it_

She swallows. “I’m going to talk to someone,” she finishes. They can break the spell; they did it before. And then remembers: Marina’s dead. But then she came back, right? Penny came back, anyone can come back, anything is possible, they have magic. Isn’t that how this works? There are multiple timelines; this must just be the wrong one, right? She realizes that she’s not sure what happened, either.

“Julia,” he’s saying. “You put me here? Why would you do that?”

“Please, Q,” she says. “Just let me fix it. I know I can fix it.”

He says something indistinct.

“Q,” she says desperately, “You’re breaking up. Just—I’ll call you back. What number are you calling from?”

“It’s a pay phone.”

“What’s the number? Wait—what’s the area code? I can find you.”

“There’s no area code.”

“What do you mean?” she says. “There has to be an area code.”

It sounds like he’s laughing. Her face hurts from pressing the phone so hard. 

“There’s no area code.”

“Q, what—“

—and she’s aware, with a lurch, that she’s lying with her face on the keyboard of her laptop. The phone is charging on the countertop where she left it. She runs over to look anyway. No recent activity. The last call is from Penny, this morning.

Of course.

She pushes the phone icon. Unsurprisingly, Penny doesn’t pick up. No one ever does, anyway, she reflects, listening to it ring. Hardly anyone leaves an outgoing message, either. Penny does, though, his voice rich and strong.

“Leave a message.”

Brief and to the point. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. She hesitates. She can’t think what comes next. Eventually, she hangs up.

She sits again, just looking at the small screen. She scrolls through her contact list. L, M, N, O, P.

She stops.

He never had an outgoing message; she can’t even tell herself she’s keeping the number so that she can hear his voice again. 

And he never liked his name, she thinks. They made fun of him for it. She thinks of a little boy in a rumpled, inside-out t-shirt, knees skinned from stumbling at recess, peering shyly at her from under overlong bangs. She remembers asking him what he was reading. 

She can’t see. It’s like driving in a rainstorm.

“I’m sorry,” she says, again and again. “I’m sorry.”

Finally, she wipes her face. Takes a long, shuddering breath. 

Slowly, gently, she pushes the delete button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this (canon-compliant until S5) universe, Eliot somehow got himself back to Earth, while Margo is presumably still in future Fillory. I doubt I'll be filling out the details.

**Author's Note:**

> Why:
> 
> Scenes wouldn't get out of my head. 
> 
> And now, also: faintly curious to see if any of this ends up resembling what they actually do.
> 
> Basically, this came out of a lot of ruminating along the lines of "the showrunners keep saying they want to do x, y and z with season 5. Assuming that they're serious about everything they say, including that they're not bringing Quentin back to life, how could this be done in a way that a) addresses at least some of the shit that most pissed me off about the way they ended S4 b) I might find cathartic."
> 
> Which is not, of course, to suggest that they'll actually do any such thing(s). More: well, it's at least a plausible way they -could- go. 
> 
> Also, it's taking the liberty of assuming that their coy hints that Jason Ralph is "no longer a series regular" and so on mean it's entirely possible that they're planning to have him back as a guest. Because frankly, it'd be stupid not to.
> 
> These are just fragments and short scenes from what would be complete teleplays. The assumption is that they're surrounded by all kinds of storylines that I have no intention of completing (but will be noted where relevant). 
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading, if you are still reading, and I really am sorry about all this. If you're looking for Q/E centered fic where the stupid finale never happens in the first place, you're more than welcome to check out my other, ongoing series, [For Want of a Nail.](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1382302)


End file.
